Ever hear of the Microsoft Tax? even members of the company have refered to like that. It isn't a 'true' tax, but millions of people pay it anyway.
That is only charged to those who choose to purchase a PC from a manufacturer who chooses to accept MS's terms. They are free to pay for retail Windoze if they want, or to sell another OS. The fact is, that's what most people want. Yes, it sucks for those who don't want Windows, but this is trivial compared with what the government charges.
Ever hear of an HMO?
You mean the quasi-governmental organizations that exist after 50 years of government meddling in the health care industry? In a free market, people would pay for their own routine medical care, and insurance would only apply to emergencies. And HMO's only tell you which drugs they will pay for. You are welcome to switch plans or pay for your own services if you want to.
You've got me there, the MPAA is a collection of corporation.
Like you said, this is due to stupid copyright laws-- a *government* creation. That's my point: the goal should be to repeal stupid laws, not demonize the companies that take advantage of them.
Frankly, I don't care if politicians pretend to care about me. Corporations (at least for the most part) cannot do anything to me unless I sign up for their product. How exactly are they such a big threat without the power of government to back them up?
In other words, those who choose to live in the country are subsidized by those who live in the city. Why shouldn't people pay the full cost of mail service?
Also, I'm pretty sure UPS and FedEx deliver packages to rural areas, so even there your theory doesn't make any sense.
And I agree with you-- the regulations on the USPS should be repealed, and UPS and FedEx should be allowed to provide first class service.
But whereas as corporation spends its money on itself, not its customers if at all possible, the government is supposed to spend the money it gets on the people who pay taxes.
That's a nice theory, but it bears no relationship to the way things actually work. Government spends its money buying votes to get politicians reelected. If you think that corporations are less wasteful than government, I suggest you pay better attention to what the government is actually doing.
Products such as tobacco, alcohol, and Furbies are of dubious usefulness, and yet they sell well.
That's an arrogant statement. Usefullness *is* in the eye of the beholder, so who are you to say that these things are not useful. The point is that the things corporations make are things that their customers voluntarily choose to buy, while things governments make are things that politicians think will get them re-elected. Who is going to benefit more, the consumer of the taxpayer?
Efficiency is not necessarily good. It is more 'efficient' to use third world sweat shops to produce goods since these countries have fewer laws protecting workers from exploitation.
I love it when wealthy Westerners self-righteously denounce "exploitation" of the third world. This indicates not just a lack of understanding of economics, but a complete lack of respect for the people who work in those sweatshops.
People choose to work in "sweatshops" because they don't have a better choice. If you want to provide better jobs, more power to you, but don't complain about the companies that are actually out there improving the lot of these people. The fact that *you* consider them substandard wages doesn't give you the right to take those jobs away.
The interstate freeway system--built with your tax dollars--has had a tremendous positive impact on economic growth. It is unlikely that this system could have been built by private industry, since the only direct means of getting a profit is through toll booths, which run counter to the idea of a freeway.
There are several ways that this could be accomplished privately. One, you could have a subscription system, where you pay a monthly charge for the privilege of using the highway. Another would be to have a card you swap at the exit and entrance. A third would be to have sensors in the road and magnetically encoded data on the underside of your car. All three of these are technically feasible, and wouldn't inconvenience drivers much.
If a corporation needed to use physical force to protect its interests, believe me, it would.
That's why we need the government: to make sure they don't. But the government-- which already has a military-- is nonetheless a bigger threat than the corporations that might someday get one.
Pollution controls, seat belts, minimum wages, etc. are all a result of the government reigning in corporate excesses.
Pollution control is a perfectly legitimate action of the government, since pollution is a trespass on those around you, and so the government protects us from that trespass. Seat belts were on some cars before they were required, and would have been added as customers demanded them. What possible reason would a corporation have to *not* put a $10 seat belt in a car?
Minimum wages hurt the poorest members of society by making it harder for them to find employment. This hurts them even more in the long run because the best way to raise your income is on-the-job training. In short, minimum wages do more damage to the poor than practically any other law on the books.
The point is that we need the government to protect us from everyone's "excesses"-- corporate or otherwise. My problem is that we have government laws specifically targeted at corporations, when if fact corporations have no more power than any other type of organization. Without the power of the government, corporations are no threat to anyone.
Most of this isn't worth responding to, but I can't let a couple of these go unchallenged:
If my representatives don't do what I want, I don't vote for them.
I don't like what Clinton's doing. Who do you propose I vote for, Bush? What is he going to do differently?
More importantly, the vast majority of the decisions in government are made by unelected burocrats. Do you think they give a rip whether the guy at the top is a Republican or a Democrat? And as a consumer, I get a "vote" for the products I like and dislike every time I walk into a store. But in government, I get a couple of votes every 2 years. That's it. You tell me which is more accountable to the people.
Have you ever actually read the Declaration of Independence? Have you ever even seen a copy of the Constitution?
What the hell does that have to do with anything? The constitution and declaration of independence say nothing about the concept of taxation (beyond giving the federal government to lay and collect taxes in the 16th amendment, which has nothing to do with whether taxation can be destructive.)
I think you must not have. Have you ever voted? Ever? If not, STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING. The government answers directly to the voters.
I've voted every year since I turned 18, and not one of the people I've voted for has ever won. You want to tell me the government is reflecting my interests?
It is the power to protect and grow, not the power to destroy. And paying taxes is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A CITIZEN!
If I fail to pay my taxes, I will get thrown in jail. That's coercion. I never consented to the authority of the government, and I see no reason why I am bound to obey their commands.
As for taxation being used only for good, tell that to the millions of non-violent drug users who are spending their lives in prison. Tell that to the millions of desperately poor Mexican immigrants who get turned away at our border when all they want to do is find a better way of life. Tell that to all the people in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and dozens of other countries who have dies as a result of the callous incompetence of US politicians. Tell that to the millions of inner-city kids who are forced to go to failing inner-city schools where all they learn is drug use and crime.
I could go on all day. If you honestly think that the government doesn't do anything bad with the tax dollars it takes from us, then you have your head so far up your ass that I'm never going to convince you of anything.
Those people aren't paying taxes to the government of the US, so they don't get their interest served!
Oh I see, so they aren't US citizens, and so therefore there's nothing wrong with killing them by the truckload! Hell, let's just nuke any country that doesn't start sending us tribute. Does the concept of human rights mean anything to you? Has it occured to you that people are more than just revenue-generators for the government?
The military of the US exists to defend the lawful, taxpaying citizens of the US.
Gee, I sure am glad Clinton defended me from those bloodthirsty serbs! Too bad they are a continent away, and wouldn't pose a threat to the US even if that was their sole goal in life. How exactly were they a threat?
However, there certainly exist multi-national corporations with military might, too, and they don't have any such responsibilty.
Uh huh. Please tell me which corporations have their own armies.
If you reduce the power of the government, you reduce it's ability to restrain the corporate might. All the things the corps have done through government pale in comparison to what they'd do without government.
Uh huh. Please give me an example of something bad that corporations would do under lassez-faire capitalism that they can't do now.
But it is hard to "take away" power. If something can be done, then the power to do it exists somewhere. Often the best that can be done is to move the power somewhere else. Even that is hard to do. The power to use violence has been "taken away" from non-governmental actors--but I haven't observed a cessation of violent acts in the world.
This is very true. The issue of limiting the power of the government is probably *the* most important problem in political science. What it boils down to, though, is that the power rests with the people, and ultimately it is the people who decide how it is used. If the people approve of the kind of Big Government we have now, it will continue to grow. If there were a clear preference for smaller government, that would happen as well.
What dismays me about debates between "big government" and "big business" is that people don't seem to understand that government has a life of its own, and that you cannot give the government the power to do something you like without simultaneously giving it the power to do things you don't like. If the government is going to subsidize the arts, schools, museums, farmers, and other worthy causes, then corporations are going to find ways to get their fair share as well. Your "good" cause is someone elses waste.
So the issue isn't "which causes should the government support," but "how much power should the federal government have?" And people need to understand that if they support giving the government more power, that power is going to eventually be used for things that they don't support.
Two points. First, when I say I want to reduce the power of the state, I don't mean I would eliminate it entirely. The sole function of the state would be to prevent people from coercing one another. That most emphatically includes the government.
Secondly, I'm having trouble following your argument. Which corporations have you seen impose taxes on us? Which corporations can tell us which drugs we're allowed to consume? Which corporation throws us in jail if we violate one of their nitpicky rules.
Certainly if the government were eliminated entirely, there is a threat from corporations (or others) taking over. But as long as the government remains in place to protect you from the corporations, what is there to worry about?
The world is not all about power. It is possible for a society to exist without being at each others' throats.
1. The government is a hell of a lot bigger than any corporation. Microsoft has a market capitalization in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The federal government takes in trillions of dollars *annually.* If it were a corporation, its market cap would be in excess of 20 trillion dollar, or about 100 times that of the largest companies.
2. Since corporations have to make a profit, they have to at least do something useful for the people who give them money. We may not like Microsoft, but Windows is undoubtedly better than it was in 1990. Government, on the other hand, has practically no direct obligations to taxpayers. As voters, we are typically given two nearly identical choices for our leaders, and then we have to put up with his crap for another 4 years.
3. Since corporations have to turn a profit, they are at least efficient. There is a reason that FedEx and UPS are able to compete with the Postal Service despite the USPS having a monopoly in first class mail.
4. Finally, the government has the power to tax, and the power to tax is the power to destroy. Microsoft may charge you a small "tax" for Windows-- which only applies if you buy a name-brand x86 PC-- but this is dwarfed by the tens of thousands of dollars we each pay to the government.
5. The government has a military. Whenever someone tells me that government acts for the public interest, I look at our foreign policy. Our government has killed more civilians in recent years than any of the petty thugs we've gone to war with. Any damage sweatshops or capital flight may do to a country pale in comparison to the complete devastation of an economy that occurs when the US goes to war. The people of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cuba, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and North Korea would almost certainly choose to be exploited by Nike over the wholesale destruction they recieved at the hands of our government.
6. Most importantly, most of the obnoxious things corporations have done were done using the power of the state. So reducing the government to its constitutional limits would end most corporate excesses along with it.
OK, but the problem is that most people who fight "multinational corporations" do it by trying to enact new laws to stop corporations from misusing the ones that are already on the books. What they don't seem to understand is that the only way we'll ever reclaim control of our government is when it's small enough that it doesn't have so many favors to hand out to said corporations.
As long as we have a 2 trillion dollar budget and as long as federal buearocrats regulate every aspect of our lives, corporations will pour money into getting their share. There's simply no way to stop it.
Think of government as a loaded gun sitting in the middle of the room, with all of us around the edges. Whoever gets to it first gets to use it on his opponents. Therefore, getting control is a matter of life or death, especially for big corporations, because they know if they don't get to it, either their competitors or their enemies will get ahold of that gun and use it on them. It's therefore not surprising that they work so hard to get control of the government.
Every interest group in the capital is trying to get control of that coercive apparatus. And any corporation that chooses to stay out of the political arena runs the risk that its competitors will get the government to screw them over. Look at Microsoft. Do you think they would have been subject to antitrust charges if Gates had given Clinton a few million bucks in 1992 and 1996? Netscape and Sun lobbied the DOJ and their home Senators to go after Microsoft, and the clear lesson there is that you have to have a presence at the capital.
Note that it doesn't even matter whether Microsoft or Netscape is in the right in this case. The fact is that it was in each of their self-interest to use the power of government to screw the other over. Netscape got their first, and so whether they were right or not, doing so gave them a tactical advantage in the marketplace.
The solution isn't to add more laws and hope they succeed where previous laws have failed. The solution is to get rid of the gun that everyone's fighting over. Only when the big corporations have nothing to gain or lose by staying out of the political arena will they do so.
Incidentally, only a Libertarian will give you a wholesale downsizing of government. Don't waste your vote this November. Vote Libertarian.
What always puzzles me about this is that when people complain about how evil big corporations are, they always give examples of corporations abusing people *using government.* So the problem isn't just that the corporations are abusing government powers (they are) but that the power is there to abuse in the first place. Take away the power of the government to run everyone's life, and corporations will no longer be able to use it to exploit us.
So to the extent that corporations are a threat to our liberty, the answer is *still* to reduce the government to its constitutional limits. Once we do that, the power of Big Business will go away with it.
The plot seemed cobbled together at the last minute and was full of inconsistencies. Yes, it did a good job of allowing us to get all nostalgic for the last 7 years, but as a story, it was a flop consider:
The "anti-time anomoly" runs backwards in time. That means that it starts in the future and grows "backwards" through time. Now ignoring the absurdity of this in the first place, consider the events in the "future" story. The Enterprise goes to find the anomoly, finds it missing, and then comes back later and finds it there. But this means that it is running *forward* in time. Otherwise, it would be getting smaller, and would have been there at first and gone later.
That this nonsensical problem was the central conflict of the show-- combined with the continuation of the already-stupid premise of the premiere, in which Q puts humanity on trial--says a lot about the quality of the writing. Inventing an "anomoly" as the final villain of the series is stupid.
The ending was even worse. The crew emits a "static warp bubble," and the day is saved. Since the problem was a bit of technobabble in the first place, and the "solution" was more technobabble, the story falls apart completely. All the melodramatic crap with Q is completely irrelevant. To save the galaxy, all Picard had to do is emit a static warp bubble. Duh! I bet every viewer was slapping his forehead for not seeing that one coming.
In a good story, the events of the story all lead up to the climax and conclusion. Details that don't contribute to the story should not be there. But the central conflict was Picard versus the static warp bubble. How exactly is any of the other stuff relevant to that conflict? And how does emitting a static warp bubble resolve any of the other conflicts in the story?
I'm sure there was some good writing in there somewhere. It would be hard *not* to make some moving scenes when you are closing out the greatest Sci Fi show ever made. But the overall story arc was completely uninspired and is completely unworthy of the high expectations fans had of it.
I'd have to agree with you on DS9. It was easily the best series of the four.
Um... what?
The first series was decent. Not great but on par with the last couple seasons of TNG. It was downhill from there. I finally stopped watching at about the third season, after that God-awful episode that ends with the revelation that everything in the previous 2 episodes was basically an illusion, and that nothing had really happened. There was no clever plot twist-- they just got out of these little machines and were told that everything they had just done was VR-type illusion.
My dislike was confirmed with the fourth season premier (?) which was little more than an excuse to spend an enourmous special effects budget. There was nothing the least bit original about the plot: simply a big buildup to a 10-minute battle scene.
Now I like SFX as well as anyone, and some of them were pretty cool. But a big space battle does not a story make.
I still watch it occasionally, and every time I do I am struck by the fact that it is a hollow shell of what TNG was. Many of the plotlines were taken directly from TNG plots, many of the ideas were re-hashes of things that had done before, and most of the attempts at originality were even worse.
The franchise died with Gene Rodenberry. The series finale was mediocre at best, and from that point on DS9 went steadily downhill. Voyager was never worth watching. Frankly, I don't think the writers are capable of pumping out 30 fresh original scripts for 14 years without eventually burning out. The franchise needs to be put to rest before it embarrasses itself any further. Maybe 10 years from now it can be resurrected (with someone other than Rick Berman at the helm) but for now they need to give it a rest.
Of course, UPN can still make more money on the fumes of a once-great franchise than on any of the other crap they pump out, so I don't think they are going to be ending it any time soon.
...they buried it into Windows so that you couldn't get rid of IE in order to take over the web browser market.
OK, I basically just don't think that should be a crime, although I'll admit that a plausible case can be made that it is under current law. Netscape is free to find partners for its browser in the same manner. In fact, that's essentially what it did with the AOL merger. And even with the tying, many users stuck with Netscape.
And why, pray tell, do you avoid MS products?
Because I don't like them. UI-wise they're inferior to Mac OS, and for development and as a server they're generally inferior to *nix alternatives.
But stamping out all alternatives so as to force you into using their products just isn't right.
I understand the sentiment, but I don't think it's right. There are still alternatives, and really good products *do* have a chance in the marketplace. And I don't see how the antitrust case is going to do any good. Consumers are going to continue to buy what they're used to, and so even if a breakup occurs, Be and Linux are going to be in about the same position as always. I think this is more due to consumer choices than anything Microsoft has done.
Switching platforms is a lot of work, and even if Microsoft hadn't done any of the nasty things it's accused of doing, it would likely still be the de facto standard. And even though Be's a nice OS, it doesn't have anywhere near the applications support it would need to be a useful desktop OS. So yes, they deserve a chance, but I don't see that Microsoft has done anything to them.
Surely you must concede that Linux is a kick-ass server platform.
Absolutely.
But you seem to regard it as if it were intended for desktop use
A lot of people on Slashdot think it is, and if the folks at KDE and Gnome intend to make that happen. Whether it will is an open question. Right now, Linux is a mediocre desktop platform for geeks, and an unusable one for novices, but I can see that changing rapidly if companies keep pouring money into it. I recently started playing with KDE, and it's a hell of a lot closer to a real GUI than fvwm.
So I guess my point is that right now, Windows is the only reasonable desktop OS for x86, but that if Microsoft abuses their customers too much, there is a real chance that either of them could become a serious competitor. Microsoft therefore can't afford to act like a monopolist.
I suppose you're doing it to show the MS flag or something. Fine. If I were you, I'd do it in a more neutral forum, but it takes all types, I guess.
Actually, I don't particularly like Microsoft or its products, and I have no interest in promoting them. What I *do* care about is economic freedom, the rule of law, and justice. I think all of these are being trampled by this case. (And by antitrust law in general, but that's another issue.)
Thay have broken the law with no regard for the consequences.
Which law? Antitrust? Antitrust law is so vague that almost every large company breaks it repeatedly. And the standards of antitrust law change with every new administration and every new judge. Other than that, I can't think of any laws they have broken. If they have committed any real crimes (like fraud, for example) I'm all for pubishing them for that. But adding features to your OS shouldn't be a crime under any circumstances.
You claim that MS's politically connected competitors are driving this lawsuit.
Um... Netscape, Sun, and Oracle? Do you think it's a coincidence that one of the DOJ's biggest cheerleaders is Orrin Hatch? Netscape couldn't keep up with Microsoft in the marketplace, so instead they are turning to the courtroom. I don't think that's something that deserves our admiration.
Considering all other elements of the computer market have dropped in prices you are proving they have a monopoly.
That's not really true. Most *hardware* has dropped in price, but software in many cases hasn't. The price for Win98 is on par with that of the Mac OS, which clearly doesn't have a monopoly.
It's also not unusual for people trying to survie a monopolist to have prices in the same range. If they drop thier prices lower to gain market share the monopolists just drives them out of business with lower prices. If they raise prices they get killed.
OK, now you're just making things up. You're saying that Apple doesn't cut its prices out of fear of Microsoft doing likewise? Or that Red Hat would raise its prices if Microsoft did? That makes no sense at all.
Not to mention the fact no smart monopolist ever charges the max they can. All that does is allow competion into the market place.
Exactly, which is what's so ridiculous about antitrust law. No monopolist keeps his monopoly unless he continues to provide what customers want. There are always up-and-coming challenges. Look at AMD, for example.
Max price does not equal max profit.
This is true but irrelevant. If it were really true that no one had any choice of OS and never would, then the revenue-maximizing price for Windows would be a lot more than $100. MS keeps the price down to $100 in part because if they set it too high, that's an opportunity for a competitor to come in and take market share away from them. In any event, $100 is not an unreasonable price to pay for an operating system, and I doubt it would go down all that much if Microsoft got serious competition.
I agree, but punishing the bad monopolist (as opposed to just plain-old monopolist) does not entail telling companies how to design software.
Except that "the rules" are so vague and overreaching that companies will end up looking over their shoulder to make sure anything they do won't be looked at as monopolistic. Antitrust law gets reinterpreted practically every time it is used, and things that are considered perfectly legal in one decade will become illegal in the next.
If antitrust law were written in a clear and unambiguous way, then I'd agree, but it's not. It prohibits "combinations in restraint of trade," "unfair competition," and other similarly vague phrases. The only way a company with a large market share can ensure it not run afoul of the law is to not enter new markets and not do anything that might hurt a competitor. But in a market like this one doing so would be suicide.
You can't be serious. Do you mean the punishment for negligence causing death ought to be the same as for capital murder? It'll be a cold day in hell before I agree to something like that.
There's a big difference between writing laws based on whether you meant to do something, and writing laws based on *why* you meant to do something. For example, differing punishments for intentionally and accidentally killing someone are reasonable, but laws that punish you differently if you did it out of "hate" is a terrible idea.
Besides, it's always illegal to kill an innocent person, it's only the sentencing that's different. But under antitrust law, an action might be illegal if you are a large company and you did it to hurt a competitor, but might be ok if you were simply doing it to improving your product. The difference is strictly in the mind of the person doing it. And it should be obvious that the line between the two is very fuzzy, since any improvement to your product is going to hurt your competition.
Ok, so what youre saying is that when I go down to my local Best Buy and attemtp to buy a computer, I have the right to install an Operating System other than MS Windows right?
Best buy has chosen to carry only computers that install Windows. You don't have a right to dictate what inventory they carry, or what liscences OEM's sign or don't sign. If you want a computer without Windows, you can get one. It's just a little harder, but that's because hardly anyone wants anything other than Windows.
If there were really a huge clamoring for a better alternative, then some of those non-Windows vendors would have a large enough market share that Best Buy would have to carry them. There's simply not that much demand for alternative OS's, so they don't carry them.
Oh yea, lets not forget the support that I am going to get when I install Linux. Not a single OEM company will provide you with the same level of support that you would get from using a Microsoft product.
So now Microsoft is responsible for the support policies of OEM's? OEM's support Windows because that's what most of their customers are using. There are Linux vendors who will give you support there.
Im sorry, how much is Windows 2000 now?
Windows 2000 is not a desktop operating system, and is priced similarly to Mac OS X server, Solaris, and other commercial server OS's. If you don't like the extra cost of NT, then buy Win 98.
the features that crash M$oftware are the ones we do not need anyway. Why should my WORDprocessor do GRAPHics?
This is the kind of narrow-minded thinking that seems to characterize slashdotters too often. The fact that *you* don't use a feature doesn't make it unneeded. A lot of people like to be able to embed graphics or spreadsheets into their WP docs.
Why would Microsoft put in a feature that no one wanted and that crashed their machiens more? They wouldn't. They obviously believed that *someone* wanted that feature. That someone obviously wasn't you. The fact that you consider a feature useless doesn't mean that it should be taken out of the OS.
Do you consider it fair competition in a footrace for me to trip my opponent? Is that going to result in a better outcome for human achievement?
No, but it's also a really bad idea for the government to be telling companies how to design software. Laws based on motives (rather than overt actions) are a really bad idea.
Even granting that companies shouldn't be changing features to deliberately break competitors products (and it's debatable in any given case whether that's what MS did) I still don't think the government should make that illegal. Doing so hurts Microsoft as well as the company they're hurting, and if they do it too much, customers *will* get pissed an switch to a different product. And in the long run, such tactics aren't going to work too well, as some customers will choose to not upgrade Windows rather than break their favorite app.
You are just painfully naive, I think.
And you are engaging in an ad hominum attack, I think.
There's that phrase again: "Freedom to Innovate." I've gotten positively sick of Microsoft parroting that phrase.
I use it because that's the issue. Microsoft is being sued for (among other things) adding a web browser to Windows. If MS is not allowed to add features if it might hurt a competing product, then that impacts their choices as to where they can take their software.
So? I admit it--I was practically in love with Microsoft, too. At least, until I was exposed to alternatives. Now that I have a broader experience with operating systems, I can safely say I am so much happier on Linux that there will never be a reason to go back.
Um... yeah. This is what we call an ad hom: "you must support Microsoft because you don't know any better." For the record, I don't use Windows, and don't particularly like it. I have a Mac at home, and use Solaris and Linux boxen at work. In fact I avoid Microsoft products for the most part. (although IE for the Mac is pretty good)
If you had watched it's grow in just the past six months, and I'm gonna take a wild stab here and guess that you haven't, it's growth is simply mind-boggling.
If you look at my slashdot userid, you'll see I've been reding/. since summer '98, so yes I'm familiar with Linux's growth. And when it's ready for use by average consumers, then consumers will start using it. I fail to see how antitrust law is going to make a difference one way or another there.
Have you ever TRIED downloading Netscape through a modem? Thanks to AOL bloat, it takes about two hours... my ISP has a tendancy to lose the connection after 30mins (grr), so this means I'm stuck with IE. Also, most companies (and people) think "I've already GOT a web browser, why try another?"
Yes I have. I suggest you get a new ISP or a better modem. I downloaded the Linux kernel source over the weekend, which is more than 10 megs worth of download. I also downloaded IE 5 recently, and I've downloaded several versions of both Netscape and IE in the past, as well as iCab and many other products. Yes, it's a pain, but it's not that big of a deal.
As for people thinking they don't need another browser, whose problem is that? If they're happy with IE (which isn't that bad of a product. I've used IE, Netscape, and iCab, and I prefer IE, although perhaps my Mac version is better than the Windows one)
It's ONLY being actively developed because they were bought by AOL for whatever reason - Netscape as a single company no longer exists.
Nonsense. Netscape had been developing Navigator 5 for months before the buyout. And frankly, they lost the browser wars through their own incompetence. Netscape has hardly improved at all since Navigator 3, and at that point they still had the dominant market position. They simply weren't capable of getting a new product out the door.
And Navigator was a loss-leader for their server products anyway, so its not like it's the end of the world from them if they lose market share there. And who is to say that being bought out by AOL is a bad thing? AOL saved them by giving them the kind of capital that MS had available. So now they can compete on an equal footing. I don't see what's wrong with that.
Also, if MS "wins" in the end, there is no longer any reason for them to innovate any more - there would be no compotetion left, and that would hurt consumers in the end.
First, there are other browsers--opera, iCab, Mozilla--so Microsoft isn't going to be able to just rest on its laurels. Second, even if they did, they still would have contributed enourmously to improving both Netscape and IE. Web browsers have seen vast improvements in the last 2 years. Without the competition from Microsoft, we'd probably all be using Netscape 2 right now.
IE 1 was a joke. The market only started swing toward it at about version 3, which was the first version to be competitive with the Netscape alternative. Since then, Netscape has hardly improved at all, while IE has continued to improve. At least on the Mac side, IE5 is stabler, faster, and has as many features as Navigator 4. Microsoft has earned a dominant market share by producing a better product. If you want proof, look at the Mac. There they have no OS advantage, and both IE and Netscape are installed by default. (Yes IE is the default browser, but that's hardly an overwhelming advantage.) I haven't seen the numbers recently, but IE has a clear advantage there. How is that the result of anything but a better product?
Microsoft can't run companies out of business unless they offer something that consumers prefer. In the case of DR-DOS, that something was Windows.
Besides, if you look at the specifics of the DR-DOS case, you'll find that the alleged abuses are comically trivial. They had a warning, in a *beta* copy, that said that some components *might* not work right. The end user never saw this message, because it was removed before the final version came out. If that's enough to drag them into court, then every company in the country is going to spend all their resources on lawyers.
I don't know the details of the Stacker case, but I suspect the issues are similar. In specific cases, Microsoft may have committed some actual crimes (like fraud, for example) and if so, they should be punished like anyone else. But if their crime was simply out-competing a smaller company, then I see nothing wrong with that. That's the risk you take when you go into business--that a more effective competitor will beat you.
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Ever hear of the Microsoft Tax? even members of the company have refered to like that. It isn't a 'true' tax, but millions of people pay it anyway.
That is only charged to those who choose to purchase a PC from a manufacturer who chooses to accept MS's terms. They are free to pay for retail Windoze if they want, or to sell another OS. The fact is, that's what most people want. Yes, it sucks for those who don't want Windows, but this is trivial compared with what the government charges.
Ever hear of an HMO?
You mean the quasi-governmental organizations that exist after 50 years of government meddling in the health care industry? In a free market, people would pay for their own routine medical care, and insurance would only apply to emergencies. And HMO's only tell you which drugs they will pay for. You are welcome to switch plans or pay for your own services if you want to.
You've got me there, the MPAA is a collection of corporation.
Like you said, this is due to stupid copyright laws-- a *government* creation. That's my point: the goal should be to repeal stupid laws, not demonize the companies that take advantage of them.
Frankly, I don't care if politicians pretend to care about me. Corporations (at least for the most part) cannot do anything to me unless I sign up for their product. How exactly are they such a big threat without the power of government to back them up?
We're the only ones who are willing to cut the government down to size.
In other words, those who choose to live in the country are subsidized by those who live in the city. Why shouldn't people pay the full cost of mail service?
Also, I'm pretty sure UPS and FedEx deliver packages to rural areas, so even there your theory doesn't make any sense.
And I agree with you-- the regulations on the USPS should be repealed, and UPS and FedEx should be allowed to provide first class service.
But whereas as corporation spends its money on itself, not its customers if at all possible, the government is supposed to spend the money it gets on the people who pay taxes.
That's a nice theory, but it bears no relationship to the way things actually work. Government spends its money buying votes to get politicians reelected. If you think that corporations are less wasteful than government, I suggest you pay better attention to what the government is actually doing.
Products such as tobacco, alcohol, and Furbies are of dubious usefulness, and yet they sell well.
That's an arrogant statement. Usefullness *is* in the eye of the beholder, so who are you to say that these things are not useful. The point is that the things corporations make are things that their customers voluntarily choose to buy, while things governments make are things that politicians think will get them re-elected. Who is going to benefit more, the consumer of the taxpayer?
Efficiency is not necessarily good. It is more 'efficient' to use third world sweat shops to produce goods since these countries have fewer laws protecting workers from exploitation.
I love it when wealthy Westerners self-righteously denounce "exploitation" of the third world. This indicates not just a lack of understanding of economics, but a complete lack of respect for the people who work in those sweatshops.
People choose to work in "sweatshops" because they don't have a better choice. If you want to provide better jobs, more power to you, but don't complain about the companies that are actually out there improving the lot of these people. The fact that *you* consider them substandard wages doesn't give you the right to take those jobs away.
The interstate freeway system--built with your tax dollars--has had a tremendous positive impact on economic growth. It is unlikely that this system could have been built by private industry, since the only direct means of getting a profit is through toll booths, which run counter to the idea of a freeway.
There are several ways that this could be accomplished privately. One, you could have a subscription system, where you pay a monthly charge for the privilege of using the highway. Another would be to have a card you swap at the exit and entrance. A third would be to have sensors in the road and magnetically encoded data on the underside of your car. All three of these are technically feasible, and wouldn't inconvenience drivers much.
If a corporation needed to use physical force to protect its interests, believe me, it would.
That's why we need the government: to make sure they don't. But the government-- which already has a military-- is nonetheless a bigger threat than the corporations that might someday get one.
Pollution controls, seat belts, minimum wages, etc. are all a result of the government reigning in corporate excesses.
Pollution control is a perfectly legitimate action of the government, since pollution is a trespass on those around you, and so the government protects us from that trespass. Seat belts were on some cars before they were required, and would have been added as customers demanded them. What possible reason would a corporation have to *not* put a $10 seat belt in a car?
Minimum wages hurt the poorest members of society by making it harder for them to find employment. This hurts them even more in the long run because the best way to raise your income is on-the-job training. In short, minimum wages do more damage to the poor than practically any other law on the books.
The point is that we need the government to protect us from everyone's "excesses"-- corporate or otherwise. My problem is that we have government laws specifically targeted at corporations, when if fact corporations have no more power than any other type of organization. Without the power of the government, corporations are no threat to anyone.
Most of this isn't worth responding to, but I can't let a couple of these go unchallenged:
If my representatives don't do what I want, I don't vote for them.
I don't like what Clinton's doing. Who do you propose I vote for, Bush? What is he going to do differently?
More importantly, the vast majority of the decisions in government are made by unelected burocrats. Do you think they give a rip whether the guy at the top is a Republican or a Democrat? And as a consumer, I get a "vote" for the products I like and dislike every time I walk into a store. But in government, I get a couple of votes every 2 years. That's it. You tell me which is more accountable to the people.
Have you ever actually read the Declaration of Independence? Have you ever even seen a copy of the Constitution?
What the hell does that have to do with anything? The constitution and declaration of independence say nothing about the concept of taxation (beyond giving the federal government to lay and collect taxes in the 16th amendment, which has nothing to do with whether taxation can be destructive.)
I think you must not have. Have you ever voted? Ever? If not, STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING. The government answers directly to the voters.
I've voted every year since I turned 18, and not one of the people I've voted for has ever won. You want to tell me the government is reflecting my interests?
It is the power to protect and grow, not the power to destroy. And paying taxes is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A CITIZEN!
If I fail to pay my taxes, I will get thrown in jail. That's coercion. I never consented to the authority of the government, and I see no reason why I am bound to obey their commands.
As for taxation being used only for good, tell that to the millions of non-violent drug users who are spending their lives in prison. Tell that to the millions of desperately poor Mexican immigrants who get turned away at our border when all they want to do is find a better way of life. Tell that to all the people in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and dozens of other countries who have dies as a result of the callous incompetence of US politicians. Tell that to the millions of inner-city kids who are forced to go to failing inner-city schools where all they learn is drug use and crime.
I could go on all day. If you honestly think that the government doesn't do anything bad with the tax dollars it takes from us, then you have your head so far up your ass that I'm never going to convince you of anything.
Those people aren't paying taxes to the government of the US, so they don't get their interest served!
Oh I see, so they aren't US citizens, and so therefore there's nothing wrong with killing them by the truckload! Hell, let's just nuke any country that doesn't start sending us tribute. Does the concept of human rights mean anything to you? Has it occured to you that people are more than just revenue-generators for the government?
The military of the US exists to defend the lawful, taxpaying citizens of the US.
Gee, I sure am glad Clinton defended me from those bloodthirsty serbs! Too bad they are a continent away, and wouldn't pose a threat to the US even if that was their sole goal in life. How exactly were they a threat?
However, there certainly exist multi-national corporations with military might, too, and they don't have any such responsibilty.
Uh huh. Please tell me which corporations have their own armies.
If you reduce the power of the government, you reduce it's ability to restrain the corporate might. All the things the corps have done through government pale in comparison to what they'd do without government.
Uh huh. Please give me an example of something bad that corporations would do under lassez-faire capitalism that they can't do now.
But it is hard to "take away" power. If something can be done, then the power to do it exists somewhere. Often the best that can be done is to move the power somewhere else. Even that is hard to do. The power to use violence has been "taken away" from non-governmental actors--but I haven't observed a cessation of violent acts in the world.
This is very true. The issue of limiting the power of the government is probably *the* most important problem in political science. What it boils down to, though, is that the power rests with the people, and ultimately it is the people who decide how it is used. If the people approve of the kind of Big Government we have now, it will continue to grow. If there were a clear preference for smaller government, that would happen as well.
What dismays me about debates between "big government" and "big business" is that people don't seem to understand that government has a life of its own, and that you cannot give the government the power to do something you like without simultaneously giving it the power to do things you don't like. If the government is going to subsidize the arts, schools, museums, farmers, and other worthy causes, then corporations are going to find ways to get their fair share as well. Your "good" cause is someone elses waste.
So the issue isn't "which causes should the government support," but "how much power should the federal government have?" And people need to understand that if they support giving the government more power, that power is going to eventually be used for things that they don't support.
Two points. First, when I say I want to reduce the power of the state, I don't mean I would eliminate it entirely. The sole function of the state would be to prevent people from coercing one another. That most emphatically includes the government.
Secondly, I'm having trouble following your argument. Which corporations have you seen impose taxes on us? Which corporations can tell us which drugs we're allowed to consume? Which corporation throws us in jail if we violate one of their nitpicky rules.
Certainly if the government were eliminated entirely, there is a threat from corporations (or others) taking over. But as long as the government remains in place to protect you from the corporations, what is there to worry about?
The world is not all about power. It is possible for a society to exist without being at each others' throats.
1. The government is a hell of a lot bigger than any corporation. Microsoft has a market capitalization in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The federal government takes in trillions of dollars *annually.* If it were a corporation, its market cap would be in excess of 20 trillion dollar, or about 100 times that of the largest companies.
2. Since corporations have to make a profit, they have to at least do something useful for the people who give them money. We may not like Microsoft, but Windows is undoubtedly better than it was in 1990. Government, on the other hand, has practically no direct obligations to taxpayers. As voters, we are typically given two nearly identical choices for our leaders, and then we have to put up with his crap for another 4 years.
3. Since corporations have to turn a profit, they are at least efficient. There is a reason that FedEx and UPS are able to compete with the Postal Service despite the USPS having a monopoly in first class mail.
4. Finally, the government has the power to tax, and the power to tax is the power to destroy. Microsoft may charge you a small "tax" for Windows-- which only applies if you buy a name-brand x86 PC-- but this is dwarfed by the tens of thousands of dollars we each pay to the government.
5. The government has a military. Whenever someone tells me that government acts for the public interest, I look at our foreign policy. Our government has killed more civilians in recent years than any of the petty thugs we've gone to war with. Any damage sweatshops or capital flight may do to a country pale in comparison to the complete devastation of an economy that occurs when the US goes to war. The people of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cuba, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and North Korea would almost certainly choose to be exploited by Nike over the wholesale destruction they recieved at the hands of our government.
6. Most importantly, most of the obnoxious things corporations have done were done using the power of the state. So reducing the government to its constitutional limits would end most corporate excesses along with it.
OK, but the problem is that most people who fight "multinational corporations" do it by trying to enact new laws to stop corporations from misusing the ones that are already on the books. What they don't seem to understand is that the only way we'll ever reclaim control of our government is when it's small enough that it doesn't have so many favors to hand out to said corporations.
As long as we have a 2 trillion dollar budget and as long as federal buearocrats regulate every aspect of our lives, corporations will pour money into getting their share. There's simply no way to stop it.
Think of government as a loaded gun sitting in the middle of the room, with all of us around the edges. Whoever gets to it first gets to use it on his opponents. Therefore, getting control is a matter of life or death, especially for big corporations, because they know if they don't get to it, either their competitors or their enemies will get ahold of that gun and use it on them. It's therefore not surprising that they work so hard to get control of the government.
Every interest group in the capital is trying to get control of that coercive apparatus. And any corporation that chooses to stay out of the political arena runs the risk that its competitors will get the government to screw them over. Look at Microsoft. Do you think they would have been subject to antitrust charges if Gates had given Clinton a few million bucks in 1992 and 1996? Netscape and Sun lobbied the DOJ and their home Senators to go after Microsoft, and the clear lesson there is that you have to have a presence at the capital.
Note that it doesn't even matter whether Microsoft or Netscape is in the right in this case. The fact is that it was in each of their self-interest to use the power of government to screw the other over. Netscape got their first, and so whether they were right or not, doing so gave them a tactical advantage in the marketplace.
The solution isn't to add more laws and hope they succeed where previous laws have failed. The solution is to get rid of the gun that everyone's fighting over. Only when the big corporations have nothing to gain or lose by staying out of the political arena will they do so.
Incidentally, only a Libertarian will give you a wholesale downsizing of government. Don't waste your vote this November. Vote Libertarian.
What always puzzles me about this is that when people complain about how evil big corporations are, they always give examples of corporations abusing people *using government.* So the problem isn't just that the corporations are abusing government powers (they are) but that the power is there to abuse in the first place. Take away the power of the government to run everyone's life, and corporations will no longer be able to use it to exploit us.
So to the extent that corporations are a threat to our liberty, the answer is *still* to reduce the government to its constitutional limits. Once we do that, the power of Big Business will go away with it.
The series finale was mediocre at best, and from that point on DS9 went steadily downhill.
I meant the TNG finale.
The plot seemed cobbled together at the last minute and was full of inconsistencies. Yes, it did a good job of allowing us to get all nostalgic for the last 7 years, but as a story, it was a flop consider:
The "anti-time anomoly" runs backwards in time. That means that it starts in the future and grows "backwards" through time. Now ignoring the absurdity of this in the first place, consider the events in the "future" story. The Enterprise goes to find the anomoly, finds it missing, and then comes back later and finds it there. But this means that it is running *forward* in time. Otherwise, it would be getting smaller, and would have been there at first and gone later.
That this nonsensical problem was the central conflict of the show-- combined with the continuation of the already-stupid premise of the premiere, in which Q puts humanity on trial--says a lot about the quality of the writing. Inventing an "anomoly" as the final villain of the series is stupid.
The ending was even worse. The crew emits a "static warp bubble," and the day is saved. Since the problem was a bit of technobabble in the first place, and the "solution" was more technobabble, the story falls apart completely. All the melodramatic crap with Q is completely irrelevant. To save the galaxy, all Picard had to do is emit a static warp bubble. Duh! I bet every viewer was slapping his forehead for not seeing that one coming.
In a good story, the events of the story all lead up to the climax and conclusion. Details that don't contribute to the story should not be there. But the central conflict was Picard versus the static warp bubble. How exactly is any of the other stuff relevant to that conflict? And how does emitting a static warp bubble resolve any of the other conflicts in the story?
I'm sure there was some good writing in there somewhere. It would be hard *not* to make some moving scenes when you are closing out the greatest Sci Fi show ever made. But the overall story arc was completely uninspired and is completely unworthy of the high expectations fans had of it.
I'd have to agree with you on DS9. It was easily the best series of the four.
Um... what?
The first series was decent. Not great but on par with the last couple seasons of TNG. It was downhill from there. I finally stopped watching at about the third season, after that God-awful episode that ends with the revelation that everything in the previous 2 episodes was basically an illusion, and that nothing had really happened. There was no clever plot twist-- they just got out of these little machines and were told that everything they had just done was VR-type illusion.
My dislike was confirmed with the fourth season premier (?) which was little more than an excuse to spend an enourmous special effects budget. There was nothing the least bit original about the plot: simply a big buildup to a 10-minute battle scene.
Now I like SFX as well as anyone, and some of them were pretty cool. But a big space battle does not a story make.
I still watch it occasionally, and every time I do I am struck by the fact that it is a hollow shell of what TNG was. Many of the plotlines were taken directly from TNG plots, many of the ideas were re-hashes of things that had done before, and most of the attempts at originality were even worse.
The franchise died with Gene Rodenberry. The series finale was mediocre at best, and from that point on DS9 went steadily downhill. Voyager was never worth watching. Frankly, I don't think the writers are capable of pumping out 30 fresh original scripts for 14 years without eventually burning out. The franchise needs to be put to rest before it embarrasses itself any further. Maybe 10 years from now it can be resurrected (with someone other than Rick Berman at the helm) but for now they need to give it a rest.
Of course, UPN can still make more money on the fumes of a once-great franchise than on any of the other crap they pump out, so I don't think they are going to be ending it any time soon.
...they buried it into Windows so that you couldn't get rid of IE in order to take over the web browser market.
OK, I basically just don't think that should be a crime, although I'll admit that a plausible case can be made that it is under current law. Netscape is free to find partners for its browser in the same manner. In fact, that's essentially what it did with the AOL merger. And even with the tying, many users stuck with Netscape.
And why, pray tell, do you avoid MS products?
Because I don't like them. UI-wise they're inferior to Mac OS, and for development and as a server they're generally inferior to *nix alternatives.
But stamping out all alternatives so as to force you into using their products just isn't right.
I understand the sentiment, but I don't think it's right. There are still alternatives, and really good products *do* have a chance in the marketplace. And I don't see how the antitrust case is going to do any good. Consumers are going to continue to buy what they're used to, and so even if a breakup occurs, Be and Linux are going to be in about the same position as always. I think this is more due to consumer choices than anything Microsoft has done.
Switching platforms is a lot of work, and even if Microsoft hadn't done any of the nasty things it's accused of doing, it would likely still be the de facto standard. And even though Be's a nice OS, it doesn't have anywhere near the applications support it would need to be a useful desktop OS. So yes, they deserve a chance, but I don't see that Microsoft has done anything to them.
Surely you must concede that Linux is a kick-ass server platform.
Absolutely.
But you seem to regard it as if it were intended for desktop use
A lot of people on Slashdot think it is, and if the folks at KDE and Gnome intend to make that happen. Whether it will is an open question. Right now, Linux is a mediocre desktop platform for geeks, and an unusable one for novices, but I can see that changing rapidly if companies keep pouring money into it. I recently started playing with KDE, and it's a hell of a lot closer to a real GUI than fvwm.
So I guess my point is that right now, Windows is the only reasonable desktop OS for x86, but that if Microsoft abuses their customers too much, there is a real chance that either of them could become a serious competitor. Microsoft therefore can't afford to act like a monopolist.
I suppose you're doing it to show the MS flag or something. Fine. If I were you, I'd do it in a more neutral forum, but it takes all types, I guess.
Actually, I don't particularly like Microsoft or its products, and I have no interest in promoting them. What I *do* care about is economic freedom, the rule of law, and justice. I think all of these are being trampled by this case. (And by antitrust law in general, but that's another issue.)
Thay have broken the law with no regard for the consequences.
Which law? Antitrust? Antitrust law is so vague that almost every large company breaks it repeatedly. And the standards of antitrust law change with every new administration and every new judge. Other than that, I can't think of any laws they have broken. If they have committed any real crimes (like fraud, for example) I'm all for pubishing them for that. But adding features to your OS shouldn't be a crime under any circumstances.
You claim that MS's politically connected competitors are driving this lawsuit.
Um... Netscape, Sun, and Oracle? Do you think it's a coincidence that one of the DOJ's biggest cheerleaders is Orrin Hatch? Netscape couldn't keep up with Microsoft in the marketplace, so instead they are turning to the courtroom. I don't think that's something that deserves our admiration.
Considering all other elements of the computer market have dropped in prices you are proving they have a monopoly.
That's not really true. Most *hardware* has dropped in price, but software in many cases hasn't. The price for Win98 is on par with that of the Mac OS, which clearly doesn't have a monopoly.
It's also not unusual for people trying to survie a monopolist to have prices in the same range. If they drop thier prices lower to gain market share the monopolists just drives them out of business with lower prices. If they raise prices they get killed.
OK, now you're just making things up. You're saying that Apple doesn't cut its prices out of fear of Microsoft doing likewise? Or that Red Hat would raise its prices if Microsoft did? That makes no sense at all.
Not to mention the fact no smart monopolist ever charges the max they can. All that does is allow competion into the market place.
Exactly, which is what's so ridiculous about antitrust law. No monopolist keeps his monopoly unless he continues to provide what customers want. There are always up-and-coming challenges. Look at AMD, for example.
Max price does not equal max profit.
This is true but irrelevant. If it were really true that no one had any choice of OS and never would, then the revenue-maximizing price for Windows would be a lot more than $100. MS keeps the price down to $100 in part because if they set it too high, that's an opportunity for a competitor to come in and take market share away from them. In any event, $100 is not an unreasonable price to pay for an operating system, and I doubt it would go down all that much if Microsoft got serious competition.
I agree, but punishing the bad monopolist (as opposed to just plain-old monopolist) does not entail telling companies how to design software.
Except that "the rules" are so vague and overreaching that companies will end up looking over their shoulder to make sure anything they do won't be looked at as monopolistic. Antitrust law gets reinterpreted practically every time it is used, and things that are considered perfectly legal in one decade will become illegal in the next.
If antitrust law were written in a clear and unambiguous way, then I'd agree, but it's not. It prohibits "combinations in restraint of trade," "unfair competition," and other similarly vague phrases. The only way a company with a large market share can ensure it not run afoul of the law is to not enter new markets and not do anything that might hurt a competitor. But in a market like this one doing so would be suicide.
You can't be serious. Do you mean the punishment for negligence causing death ought to be the same as for capital murder? It'll be a cold day in hell before I agree to something like that.
There's a big difference between writing laws based on whether you meant to do something, and writing laws based on *why* you meant to do something. For example, differing punishments for intentionally and accidentally killing someone are reasonable, but laws that punish you differently if you did it out of "hate" is a terrible idea.
Besides, it's always illegal to kill an innocent person, it's only the sentencing that's different. But under antitrust law, an action might be illegal if you are a large company and you did it to hurt a competitor, but might be ok if you were simply doing it to improving your product. The difference is strictly in the mind of the person doing it. And it should be obvious that the line between the two is very fuzzy, since any improvement to your product is going to hurt your competition.
Ok, so what youre saying is that when I go down to my local Best Buy and attemtp to buy a computer, I have the right to install an Operating System other than MS Windows right?
Best buy has chosen to carry only computers that install Windows. You don't have a right to dictate what inventory they carry, or what liscences OEM's sign or don't sign. If you want a computer without Windows, you can get one. It's just a little harder, but that's because hardly anyone wants anything other than Windows.
If there were really a huge clamoring for a better alternative, then some of those non-Windows vendors would have a large enough market share that Best Buy would have to carry them. There's simply not that much demand for alternative OS's, so they don't carry them.
Oh yea, lets not forget the support that I am going to get when I install Linux. Not a single OEM company will provide you with the same level of support that you would get from using a Microsoft product.
So now Microsoft is responsible for the support policies of OEM's? OEM's support Windows because that's what most of their customers are using. There are Linux vendors who will give you support there.
Im sorry, how much is Windows 2000 now?
Windows 2000 is not a desktop operating system, and is priced similarly to Mac OS X server, Solaris, and other commercial server OS's. If you don't like the extra cost of NT, then buy Win 98.
the features that crash M$oftware are the ones we do not need anyway. Why should my WORDprocessor do GRAPHics?
This is the kind of narrow-minded thinking that seems to characterize slashdotters too often. The fact that *you* don't use a feature doesn't make it unneeded. A lot of people like to be able to embed graphics or spreadsheets into their WP docs.
Why would Microsoft put in a feature that no one wanted and that crashed their machiens more? They wouldn't. They obviously believed that *someone* wanted that feature. That someone obviously wasn't you. The fact that you consider a feature useless doesn't mean that it should be taken out of the OS.
Do you consider it fair competition in a footrace for me to trip my opponent? Is that going to result in a better outcome for human achievement?
No, but it's also a really bad idea for the government to be telling companies how to design software. Laws based on motives (rather than overt actions) are a really bad idea.
Even granting that companies shouldn't be changing features to deliberately break competitors products (and it's debatable in any given case whether that's what MS did) I still don't think the government should make that illegal. Doing so hurts Microsoft as well as the company they're hurting, and if they do it too much, customers *will* get pissed an switch to a different product. And in the long run, such tactics aren't going to work too well, as some customers will choose to not upgrade Windows rather than break their favorite app.
You are just painfully naive, I think.
And you are engaging in an ad hominum attack, I think.
There's that phrase again: "Freedom to Innovate." I've gotten positively sick of Microsoft parroting that phrase.
/. since summer '98, so yes I'm familiar with Linux's growth. And when it's ready for use by average consumers, then consumers will start using it. I fail to see how antitrust law is going to make a difference one way or another there.
I use it because that's the issue. Microsoft is being sued for (among other things) adding a web browser to Windows. If MS is not allowed to add features if it might hurt a competing product, then that impacts their choices as to where they can take their software.
So? I admit it--I was practically in love with Microsoft, too. At least, until I was exposed to alternatives. Now that I have a broader experience with operating systems, I can safely say I am so much happier on Linux that there will never be a reason to go back.
Um... yeah. This is what we call an ad hom: "you must support Microsoft because you don't know any better." For the record, I don't use Windows, and don't particularly like it. I have a Mac at home, and use Solaris and Linux boxen at work. In fact I avoid Microsoft products for the most part. (although IE for the Mac is pretty good)
If you had watched it's grow in just the past six months, and I'm gonna take a wild stab here and guess that you haven't, it's growth is simply mind-boggling.
If you look at my slashdot userid, you'll see I've been reding
The final sentence was not related to the others. I should have put it in a separate paragraph.
Microsoft doesn't have a right to change its own API?
Have you ever TRIED downloading Netscape through a modem? Thanks to AOL bloat, it takes about two hours... my ISP has a tendancy to lose the connection after 30mins (grr), so this means I'm stuck with IE. Also, most companies (and people) think "I've already GOT a web browser, why try another?"
Yes I have. I suggest you get a new ISP or a better modem. I downloaded the Linux kernel source over the weekend, which is more than 10 megs worth of download. I also downloaded IE 5 recently, and I've downloaded several versions of both Netscape and IE in the past, as well as iCab and many other products. Yes, it's a pain, but it's not that big of a deal.
As for people thinking they don't need another browser, whose problem is that? If they're happy with IE (which isn't that bad of a product. I've used IE, Netscape, and iCab, and I prefer IE, although perhaps my Mac version is better than the Windows one)
It's ONLY being actively developed because they were bought by AOL for whatever reason - Netscape as a single company no longer exists.
Nonsense. Netscape had been developing Navigator 5 for months before the buyout. And frankly, they lost the browser wars through their own incompetence. Netscape has hardly improved at all since Navigator 3, and at that point they still had the dominant market position. They simply weren't capable of getting a new product out the door.
And Navigator was a loss-leader for their server products anyway, so its not like it's the end of the world from them if they lose market share there. And who is to say that being bought out by AOL is a bad thing? AOL saved them by giving them the kind of capital that MS had available. So now they can compete on an equal footing. I don't see what's wrong with that.
Also, if MS "wins" in the end, there is no longer any reason for them to innovate any more - there would be no compotetion left, and that would hurt consumers in the end.
First, there are other browsers--opera, iCab, Mozilla--so Microsoft isn't going to be able to just rest on its laurels. Second, even if they did, they still would have contributed enourmously to improving both Netscape and IE. Web browsers have seen vast improvements in the last 2 years. Without the competition from Microsoft, we'd probably all be using Netscape 2 right now.
IE 1 was a joke. The market only started swing toward it at about version 3, which was the first version to be competitive with the Netscape alternative. Since then, Netscape has hardly improved at all, while IE has continued to improve. At least on the Mac side, IE5 is stabler, faster, and has as many features as Navigator 4. Microsoft has earned a dominant market share by producing a better product. If you want proof, look at the Mac. There they have no OS advantage, and both IE and Netscape are installed by default. (Yes IE is the default browser, but that's hardly an overwhelming advantage.) I haven't seen the numbers recently, but IE has a clear advantage there. How is that the result of anything but a better product?
Microsoft can't run companies out of business unless they offer something that consumers prefer. In the case of DR-DOS, that something was Windows.
Besides, if you look at the specifics of the DR-DOS case, you'll find that the alleged abuses are comically trivial. They had a warning, in a *beta* copy, that said that some components *might* not work right. The end user never saw this message, because it was removed before the final version came out. If that's enough to drag them into court, then every company in the country is going to spend all their resources on lawyers.
I don't know the details of the Stacker case, but I suspect the issues are similar. In specific cases, Microsoft may have committed some actual crimes (like fraud, for example) and if so, they should be punished like anyone else. But if their crime was simply out-competing a smaller company, then I see nothing wrong with that. That's the risk you take when you go into business--that a more effective competitor will beat you.